126 
ENGLISH BOTANY. 
9-flowered. Florets connected by arachnoid hairs. Lower pale obso- 
letely 3-ribbed. 
Yar. ^, polynocla. 
P. polynoda, Paniell, Grasses of Britain, p. 84;. Bah. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. iv. 
p. 403. 
Uppermost knot above the middle of tbe stem, often two-thirds 
from the base. Spikelets 4- to 6-flowered. Florets free or with but 
a single arachnoid hair at the base. Lower pale obsoletely 5-ribbed. 
Stem more decumbent, knots more numerous, ligule longer, panicle 
more contracted and with shorter branches than in var. a. 
In dry fields and on banks, on walls and amongst rocky debris. Not 
very common but generally distributed in England. Local in Scotland 
and very scarce north of the Forth and Clyde, though it is said to 
occur iu Forfarshire, and I have myself gathered it on the shores of 
the Dornoch Firth, near the Mickle Ferry, Rosslnre : in this last station, 
however, it may have been introduced, as it was in but small quantity. 
Tery rare in Ireland, the only certain locality being in the neighbour- 
hood of Londonderry. Yar. 3 in very dry places and among stones- 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
Flowering stems solitary or in loose tufts 6 inches to 2 feet high ; 
knots of the stem usually dark brownish-purple. Longest leaves 1 to 
4 inches long by to |^ inch broad. Panicle f to 4 inches long. 
Spikelets | to | inch long. Florets about } inch long. 
Professor Babington does not now consider P. polynoda as worth 
notice even as a variety, and perhaps it should be considered as a 
depauperised state, but I have not been able to test this by cultivation. 
The extremes are certainly widely ditFerent in appearance, but it is 
difficult to draw a line between them, as there is no constant corre- 
lation of distinctive characters. Poa subcompressa, Parnell, is one of 
these intermediate forms, having 5-ribbed pales and distinctly webbed 
florets. 
P. compressa differs from the other British species of Poa by having 
the spikelets less compressed, the lower pale ultimately parchment -like 
as in the genus Sclerochloa, and with the edges involute, so that in 
fruit the florets appear more distant from each other than in our 
other species. Tiie ribs on the pale are extremely faint ; indeed, the 
panicle and spikelets resemble those of a Sclerochloa, except that the 
lower pale is keeled from tlie base to the apex. 
Flat-stemmed Me'i<f' 
